Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

[L50LasPak]

With Star Wars, until the Disney buy out there was pretty much one coninuity that was roughly cohesive. With Star Trek you've had several big reboots.

Reboots or not the writers of the Star Wars EU had almost zero communication with each other, and it seemed like none of them bothered to research what the others were up to. To say nothing of the fact that a lot of the ideas are just ridiculous; IG88 uploading himself to the Death Star II just before it gets blown up comes to mind, an event that drastically rewrites or at least recontextualizes pretty much the entire ending of Return of the Jedi. Calling this uncontrolled mess of chaos cohesive is a joke at best. The idea of a well-kept and sensible Star Wars EU is just blatantly false.

Part of the reason the Star Trek EU kept getting rebooted anyway is again, because nobody actually cared about it. There was no directive from Gene Roddenberry that just everything with the Star Trek logo stamped on it was canon. And I prefer it that way, because frankly there's already enough embarrassing shit present in what we see onscreen that I don't need to cringe to death reading bargain bin science fiction written in the same franchise.

This isn't to say all EU material is always terrible. I like Starfleet Battles quite a bit, for instance. But it has nothing to do with canon, and presents a totally different universe from even TOS. Its a nice little extrapolation, but I don't need to take it seriously or wrack my brain with ways to fit it into continuity.

 

[Ike Aim]

The only EU things I consider remotely canon in Trek are the two Interplay games.

So much good went into those games... the writing, the cinematics, the music. I wonder what state the original assets are in, if they could be remastered or repurposed. Klingon Academy is basically a prologue to Star Trek VI. Would love to see a remake where the ships behave like actual starships and not space fighters. That's the only downside of those games.

So most people just figure nothing is canon unless expressly said.

The only Star Trek "EU" material that I'm aware of that are treated by fans (and writers/producers) as de facto canon are some of the technical manuals and reference materials like the TNG manual by Sternbach and Okuda and the Galaxy-class blueprints (and then of course you have things like the Writers' Technical Manual but those weren't really available to fans directly). Otherwise it's what's seen on screen. I think where we're headed is a situation where what the official rights holders (and their shills in the fandom) say is canon is patently nonsensical and contradictory and thus cannot be canon. This will cause a perpetual low-grade crisis that forces fans to assert their own conceptions of what canon is with the most common cleavage point obviously being 2005/2009 and nuTrek. If ViacomCBS wanted to really fuck shit up for everyone they'd produce at least one REALLY good and faithful Star Trek project that compels good faith fans to want to include it in their canons, thus muddying the fuck out of the waters. As of now it's trivially easy for most fans of Star Trek to simply disavow all nuTrek. There's literally nothing to lose.

 

[AmpleApricots]

Klingon Academy was rad. There was also some Klingon-themed "interactive fiction" movie game that wasn't half bad for what it was either. I don't remember the name.

I don't have this behind-the-scenes insight many here have, although I watched all of the old Trek including TOS. But for me it seems like whoever owns the franchise doesn't really understand or knows what to do with it and just turns it into cape shit. Cape shit with a seasoning of woke shit sells. That's all there is to it IMHO. (I tried watching Picard, because yes, he was my favorite starship captain, [cue the usenet flamewar days] I don't know what that was but it was not Star Trek - and I really, genuinely approached it with an open mind and I don't have the highest standards either, I just could not make it work for me)

 

[Captain Syrup]

I think where we're headed is a situation where the official canon is patently nonsensical and contradictory and thus cannot be canon.

It's so obvious that they are

1. just using the brand recognition and framework to do what they wanna do and
2. get industry cred for hitting the 'zeitgeist.'

That's good enough to fail upwards.

The show gets praise despite it being full of basic writing mistakes and barely understanding what the core fans wanted. So we lick our wounds and get shouted down. Seems to be the case with every modern adaption of a beloved series.

 

[L50LasPak]

So much good went into those games... the writing, the cinematics, the music. I wonder what state the original assets are in, if they could be remastered or repurposed. Klingon Academy is basically a prologue to Star Trek VI. Would love to see a remake where the ships behave like actual starships and not space fighters. That's the only downside of those games.

I mean the first two Interplay games, 25th Anniversary and Judgment Rites actually. I've always had a sort of mixed opinion on the FMV games. SF Academy is kind of pointless, Star Trek Klingon while a lot of fun to watch is also explicitly a simulation and therefore not canon, though maybe I could accept that its loosely based on the "real" story of a Klingon named Pok. Star Trek: Borg involves some kind of Borg invasion that just straight up doesn't happen in any of the series so we can ditch that one. Klingon Academy I would agree is really the only good one out of the FMV games, enough that I could be convinced to take its events as canon.

I've heard both good and bad things about A Final Unity, which was the third Interplay Trek game before either of the two Academy games. I'm not enough of a TNG fan to look into it yet though, and I've heard the space combat is godawful, which is unfortunate as the combat in 25th and Rites is servicable if a bit difficult at times.

 

[AmpleApricots]

I'm not enough of a TNG fan to look into it yet though, and I've heard the space combat is godawful, which is unfortunate as the combat in 25th and Rites is servicable if a bit difficult at times.

It's okayish, but strangely complicated for a star trek game, with simulation of subsytems and such. (You can totally inadvertently blow up the enterprise by just fidgeting with the settings, basically) In best star trek manner though, you can talk yourself past combat. It also copies this "behave like a startfleet officer, or kinda don't but then you lose points" from the TOS games very well. There's also some replay value because you can put your own away team together and depending on whom you pick, you get different dialogue and solutions. I don't remember the game (I played it last for real in the 90s) well but I remember it was a good game for the time.

 

[Captain Syrup]

SF Academy is kind of pointless

If I'm not mistaken, the PC game was the last time Shatner ever played Captain Kirk.

In the console version, enter "James T. Kirk" as your cadet's name. When it comes time for the Kobayashi Maru test, you can hail the Klingons when they attack.

 

[XYZpdq]

I remember farting around with the 16bit DS9 game for like, a minute on an emulator a few times. Seemed like some sort of sidescrolling adventure rpg? (adventure like "talk to people" not "stab things")

 

[L50LasPak]

If I'm not mistaken, the PC game was the last time Shatner ever played Captain Kirk.

In the console version, enter "James T. Kirk" as your cadet's name. When it comes time for the Kobayashi Maru test, you can hail the Klingons when they attack.
View attachment 2972832

Funnily enough, this is also one of the possible solutions in the PC game (I think there's a choice of three different ways you can cheat at the simulation).

 

[Captain Syrup]

I remember farting around with the 16bit DS9 game for like, a minute on an emulator a few times. Seemed like some sort of sidescrolling adventure rpg?

It's primarily a platformer.

I found it more annoying than fun.

 

[XYZpdq]

It was mainly a platformer.

There was a somewhat-cool section toward the end: Sisko's old ship being boarded by the Borg. I found it more annoying than fun.

I recall it being more eurojank than fun, like Alien 3 game with the shitty jumping

 

[Captain Syrup]

I recall it being more eurojank than fun, like Alien 3 game with the shitty jumping

You nailed it.

ALIEN³ had a prime objective, though. In Dick Suckin' Nine, you need to recalibrate phasers to kill Borg and collect parts to repair the transporter, all under a strict time limit.

 

[L50LasPak]

While i was looking up Trek games I was surprised to find there's actually a DS9 one with most of the cast doing the voicework:

Its uh... I can really see why I've never heard of this one before.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Its uh... I can really see why I've never heard of this one before.

Should have set the game in Quark's Argelian massage parlour.

 

[Sweet and Savoury]

If we're talking Star Trek games.

Elite Force was baller for its time. Plus SFB and related games, Star Fleet Command 1 and 2, we're almost perfect ports of the tabletop and great but repetitive vs the AI

You can still get em on GoG I think. If you like SFB they're pretty much a must have.

 

[Captain Syrup]

If we're talking Star Trek games. Elite Force was baller for its time.

Then the expansion pack which let you freely explore Voyager and had Jeri Ryan.

 

[Starscreams Cape]

wow that looks pretty bad form the excerpt you posted. also slightly autsitic to have nothing but a dry paragraph listing the captains and their ships like that. im guessing most of those ship captains are the nmes of his friends, and if so that's some middle school level writing.

also, i thought the name excalibur was already taken for a ship?

also patrick is way too fat to ever pass star fleet medical requirements for a captain.

EXCALIBUR was, I believe, one of the Federation ships destroyed by M5 in "The Ultimate Computer".

 

[Ike Aim]

SF Academy is kind of pointless, Star Trek Klingon while a lot of fun to watch is also explicitly a simulation and therefore not canon, though maybe I could accept that its loosely based on the "real" story of a Klingon named Pok

I never gave much consideration to their canonicity one way or the other, save for maybe the bit about Chang losing his eye. The cinematics themselves and Ron Jones score is what always made them important to me. The gameplay, while showing flashes of brilliance, still suffers from the late 90's CGI-era tendency to want to portray starships as zoomy space fighters filling the screen while banking and turning in tight formation.

 

[King Dead]

View attachment 2973716
Then the expansion pack which let you freely explore Voyager and had Jeri Ryan.

LGR did a video on both Elite Force games (mostly the first) a couple weeks ago. I was rather impressed by that Voyager exploration feature, a relic of a time when expansion packs actually gave you content worth the asking price.

 

[Captain Syrup]

a relic of a time when expansion packs actually gave you content worth the asking price.

If I patch Jeri into GTA5, will it stop being terrible?